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Thursday, April 2, 2009

Most Complicated Trade In History

Okay remember when I said last year that Tillman has a master plan so intricate and complex that none of us could hope to understand it even if he drew us a diagram? Well this is concrete evidence of that.

Yesterday the Riders were involved in a 3-way trade and if you’re like most people you’re still trying to decipher exactly what happened. I’ll do my best to break it down for you.

I also think that somewhere in the deal we get Hamilton’s waterboy and the rights to Mike Kelley’s first born son.

So essentially this trade boils down to giving up Bowman and Morin-Roberge for Rempel and a 2nd Round pick then a whole bunch of minor draft picks, some neg rights and a Canadian CB we signed only 2 weeks ago. Oh Brady Browne we hardly knew ye… check that… we didn’t know ye at all.

Aside from it being ridiculously complicated, I like this trade. We end up with a highly touted young Canadian OL (who happens to be another Saskatchewan boy), a high draft pick (guess my workload just doubled for my live draft day blogging) and the right to swap 1st rounders with the Bombers (who suck). And all we had to give up was an unproven import receiver and an even more unproven back-up lineman. That’s a victory in my books.

Don’t get me wrong, I think Bowman is a talented receiver and he may end up having a big year but we are fairly deep at receiver and a promising young Canadian lineman is a way better investment than a promising young American receiver.

As for the other teams involved… I think Hamilton made out pretty good. True, they had to give up a promising young Canadian and a top 10 draft pick but they got a proven starter at tackle that should have an immediate impact on the team. Last year they were forced to start Charles Thomas at tackle, now they can start a 2-time all-star and former Outstanding Lineman nominee… that’s a resounding success no matter how you look at it.

Winnipeg however didn’t do very well in my opinion. They traded away an all-star tackle for an unproven receiver and a back-up lineman. My only explanation is that Mike Kelley must have assumed that Jean-Francois Morin-Roberge was two linemen, not just one with a beast of a name. It would not surprise me in the least to see Bowman light it up next year, he has all the talent in the world, just no idea how to translate that into actually catching the ball. However, with Armstrong, Bryant and Edwards it’s not like the Bombers were in dire need of an American receiver and what they are doing to their O-line is mind boggling.

So far this offseason they have lost two all-star linemen (Goodspeed and Gauthier) and the most promising young centre in the league (Picard) and their replacement strategy appears to be acquire all the lineman not good enough to start in Saskatchewan (January, Morley, and now Frenchy McFour Names). If you look at the offseason overall the Bombers have severely downgraded their O-line and all they have to show for it is a receiver who can’t catch. I sincerely hope LeFors is a good scrambler.

Given all the neg rights and future draft picks, we’ll likely have to wait another decade to see how this trade pans out but on the surface this looks like a really good trade by the Riders.